When most countries said goodbye to the coronavirus pandemic and returned to life as normal, several stopped daily reporting of cases, and some moved toward just focusing on hospitalisation numbers, the deadly pandemic is back again. Now Covid-19 cases are creeping up in many countries including the United States of America, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, India and Pakistan.
Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 are either offshoots of the original Omicron variant or according to some are offshoots of BA.2 variant which was responsible for a spike of cases a few months back. It’s interesting to note that before Omicron all variants (alpha, delta and Omicron) were originated from the original virus. They were not successive generations of the virus. For public understanding, they were all sons of SARS-COV-2 (which started the outbreak in China) and brothers but now in Omicron sub-variants we are seeing one brother’s family more successful. Omicron was the most infectious of all variants and now its sub-variants are responsible for a spike of cases.
In the world daily reported Covid-19 numbers are not that high (except in UAE) as compared to previous waves. There are multiple reasons for these reduced reported numbers. There is reduced testing by governments and the public is also not going for Covid-19 testing even if they have symptoms. Many symptomatic patients are now opting for rapid tests which are not reported in national numbers. That has given a false sense of normalcy to governments and populations, and they had the illusion of a pandemic end.
Islamabad continued to report over 400 cases in the last three days to forcing the authorities to take concrete steps to tackle the situation before it gets worse like in the past. The NCOC has said it is reviewing the daily situation and imposed mandatory mask restrictions at the airports to ensure containing the problem.
So, what should we do if vaccines are not working either? Vaccines are working and saving lives, but they are never 100% effective. It was the wrong impression given by “pseudo” epidemiologists and “national leaders” for the pandemic control. Public Health uses all the resources it has and minimizes the risk for populations.
Let it be clear so far there is no vaccine that is 100pc effective against the Covid, but yes… two shots of vaccine and two booster shots can minimize the complication of the disease that is why the NCOC has again started urging people to ensure vaccination and booster shots. The situation demands immediate steps from the coalition government so that the already crunched economic condition and lives of the masses could be saved.
